To Confirm and to Convert: The Pseudoscientist's Mission
In 1992, Dr. William I. Lane published his research findings that shark cartilage and the shark immune system was the new frontier in the fight against cancer. It followed the scant clinical evidence that if cartilage inhibits the development of blood vessels, which are necessary for the growth of tumors, and sharks are made of cartilage, then sharks can’t get cancer. It seems too good to be true, right? And in fact, it was.
Lane’s findings fall under the category of pseudoscience, a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based in scientific method. Examples of pseudoscience include the Bates method for better eyesight, in which Dr. William Horatio Bates believed that glasses were actually harmful for the eyes and advocated practicing eye movement and even staring into the sun to improve sight!
Pseudoscientists want to persuade the largest group of people that their beliefs are fact. Unfortunately, the public can easily buy into these inaccurate belief systems as pseudoscientists do everything they can to seem like “real science”.
Take for example sun gazers who believe that they can live the healthiest life possible by “photosynthesizing” in the sun. Sun gazers rely on the data that they have collected, which all essentially states that melanin captures photonic energy and transforms it into chemical energy, hydrogen, which is then delivered to the cell.
This “evidence” is loosely studied and there are very few research documents that include detailed procedures to show that staring into the sun in specific durations at certain times of the day is beneficial for a person.
So, how do we differentiate from the data that a sun gazer has collected and the data that an ophthalmologist or a solar physicist, who is later disproven, has collected? It’s all data, right? Not exactly.
There is a specific, and very important, distinction between science that happens to be proven false and pseudoscience. The last thing I want is for you to believe that all science is fake and performed with malicious intent, because that is just not the case. Science follows a specific method of experimentation; its findings have reproducible results. That’s key. Think about the scientific method. A scientist must observe phenomena, and come up with a question about the process. Then based on their prior knowledge, they will try to create a hypothesis, or educated guess that explains the phenomena. After a detailed experimental process and analysis of results, they’ll either confirm their hypothesis or reach a new conclusion. These experiments must be able to show causation and be genuinely representative of population, so it must have a large sample size and multiple case studies to defend the conclusion. That’s exactly what honest scientists follow on a daily basis.
Experiments in science have to be precisely described so that they can be entirely duplicated, or better yet, improved upon. In science, inaccurate hypotheses proven wrong aren’t feared; in fact, they allow the scientists to improve their experimentation. Science conveys its findings primarily through well-established scientific journals that are peer-reviewed and require high standards for authenticity and accuracy. So it’s true: science can be wrong sometimes. But false findings in science are still reached through the process of scientific method, and true scientists aren’t afraid of a bump in the road in their research. In fact, if a scientist conducts an experiment to test their hypothesis, the conclusion reached, no matter if it confirms the hypothesis or not, is a result because it shows that the tested factors are, or are not, the ones leading to the effect. It excites them and allows them to adapt their previous hypothesis with this newfound information.
Pseudoscience, on the other hand, is largely the complete opposite. The most important distinction between pseudoscience and real science is its purpose. Pseudoscience is not meant to convince or teach but rather to convert. It wants you to believe exactly what it is conveying, despite the lack of real evidence or facts. The literature isn’t aimed at the scientific community, but rather at the general public. There is no peer-review, no standards that need to be met, and no requirement for accuracy and authenticity. The studies almost never have reproducible results, and that’s entirely intentional. The people behind the pseudoscience purposefully describe their studies in the vaguest terms possible to ensure that no one can prove them wrong. And failures or wrong hypotheses? They aren’t valued like they are in real science. Rather, pseudoscientists will do everything in their power to hide, explain away or lie about any miscalculation that could hinder their original idea, and in turn, the public’s belief. They will never change their original hypothesis, but rather fit their data to confirm it.
So now that we’ve established a concrete difference between science and pseudoscience, let’s examine perhaps the most notorious pseudoscientist in modern history: Andrew Wakefield. In February of 1998, he published case studies of 12 children dealing with severe consequences caused by the MMR vaccine. He was quickly proclaimed the “Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement”, and after the paper reached the public, vaccination rates plummeted in the UK. [1] And I can’t blame the public. Andrew Wakefield seemed to be an established scientist who was able to get his findings published in a recognized paper. This serves as a reminder for us, as the general public, to always critically analyze any piece of scientific research that comes into the public.
Unfortunately, Wakefield’s pseudoscience has affected the medical community years after his research. His paper was retracted by The Lancet after multiple physicians and scientists completed experiments that totally disproved his fake theory. Not only that, but further investigation proved that Wakefield had actually fabricated a large portion of his data, confirming that his research is in fact pseudoscience and not real science. Yet, the effect of his words still rings in our society. In 2014, a National Consumers League survey conducted in the US showed that one-third of parents with children under the age of 18, (29 percent of adults overall) believe that vaccinations can cause autism. [1] This means that people still believe that his false findings are true, and are grounded in real science. This is exactly when pseudoscience becomes more than just a harmful false belief, but a conclusion that negatively affects public and global health. And later investigation found that Wakefield had a financial conflict within the study, as he was in fact in litigation with pharmaceutical companies that dealt with the MMR vaccine, prior to his “research”. [1] When one person decides not to vaccinate themselves based purely on their belief, they are endangering people who are either too young to be vaccinated, or allergic to vaccinations. Wakefield’s study has horrible ramifications for society.
So what do we take away from this? The conclusion to be reached is not that science can never be trusted. Rather, we, the public, need be aware of our roles as thinkers. We have the power to critique and question the scientific findings that are brought to us. However, the only way to be appropriate critical thinkers is to truly understand the difference between pseudoscience and real science, and to realize that that the scientific method allows for reproducible results.
And the burden doesn’t just fall on the public. All scientists need to be able to communicate their findings in the most transparent way possible, so that we will be able to analyze their research in an effective way. True scientists are already doing this, but there is always room for improvement. In fact, many studies are never reproduced and there are often times not adequate communication between fields, or from academia to the general public. Unfortunately, there are never going to stop being Andrew Wakefields in our world. So we as the public need to be able to point them out and recognize that their pleas for shark cartilage? It’s all just click-bait.
Works Cited
Naumov, Alex. "Man Lives for 11 Years Eating Only Sunlight." PravdaReport. N.p., 28 Aug.
2006. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
"Shark & Ray Myths." Shark & Ray Myths. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Shermer, Michael. "What Is Pseudoscience?" Scientific American. N.p., 1 Sept. 2011. Web. 17
Nov. 2016.
[1] Ziv, Stav. "Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement Sticks to His Story." Newsweek. 10 Feb.
2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
